CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT—Contractual Obligations
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This may be the first lesson Alecto Carrow gave that was more fact than fiction: Muggle marriage traditions.
Alecto took the opportunity to highlight the misfortunes of marriage more than the positives, and she contrasted it with wizard customs as well as the law currently in effect.
Lavender raised her hand. "Professor." She scanned the brochure in front of her again. "What does this bit, here, mean, about interested parties challenging the legality of another marriage?"
Alecto stretched out the pamphlet to see it all at once. "Excellent question, Miss Brown. I did a little digging into this myself. There are a few ways that a marriage might not be legal—if someone was forced into the marriage, or if there were no legal witnesses are the most common so far.
"But some other examples are if the ceremony isn't completed—the Department of Contracts says they're tracking at a ninety-seven percent completion rate."
"What, so three out of a hundred people aren't gettin' married right?" Seamus asked. "How do you mess that up?"
Alecto gave him a giggle. "If the officiant isn't legally permitted to marry people, or if maybe they didn't finish the ceremony for some reason," Alecto rattled off. "It would be like if the Muggle in that example hadn't signed the license."
"Why would someone leave before the kissing part?" Lavender joked.
Hair stood up on the back of Hermione's arms. When the bell rang, she bolted from the room and up to her quarters. She ran through to the dungeons, dropped her bag on their bed and pulled their marriage contract from her bedside table. She scanned the calligraphic fine print.
There it was above Diggle's signature: If the contract is not completed within 60 days the marriage is void.
Hermione sat down on the bed.
Two months. A quick count, and she realized their sixty days ways Sunday. "How time flies, eh, Crooks?"
Crookshanks hovered in the doorway between the two bedrooms.
Okay. She had to kiss Professor Snape. She could do that.
Would he be happy about it? Obviously not. Would he cooperate. Ha. Not bloody likely. He acted as if he had married a Blast-Ended Skrewt.
She re-hid the copy of their contract in Hogwarts: A History.
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Hermione spent the first few days of the mind that an opportunity to—to complete the contract would present itself organically. There were three places the couple spent the most time together: The classroom, the lab, and in the bed asleep.
Clearly the classroom was out. The lab was too dangerous (she had no idea how he would react to a surprise attack and couldn't risk something blowing up in an ensuing shuffle), and when they were in bed…Hermione didn't want to imply that she wanted more than a contractually binding kiss.
No, she had to find another location for this task.
Now that she had forced her way into grading papers, they would do that together every so often. And if he banned her from that it wouldn't be the worst thing. (And he'd likely changed his mind when his insane brewing schedule overtook his time.) However, Hermione sat on one side of the desk and Severus sat on the other. Any sudden shift in seating arrangements would make him suspicious and possibly testy. Hermione enjoyed the way things were; he did not snap at her, did not disregard her and did not treat her like a fool. She was loathe to disrupt their odd relationship.
But survival—primarily his—took precedence over, well, whatever his reaction might be to her accosting him.
While marking essays would not be a good time. She decided to wait.
No more waiting. The end of the week drew ever nearer. Hermione just had to steel herself and get it done.
It's all easy on paper, she berated herself. Hermione was not in the business of snogging teachers. Or really anybody for that matter. If McLaggen's lackluster attempts did not count, the last person she had kissed would be Viktor Krum.
Hermione peered out the library's window. She watched the Whomping Willow shake off a bird that landed in the topmost branch.
Things would be much different had she married Viktor. A lot more than kissing would've transpired by now.
Hermione had glanced through some of Lavender's romance novels that had been strewn about their room in Gryffindor Tower. A popular motif was the arranged marriage. (And pirates, too, but Hermione didn't see any parallels there.) Those people always got down to more-than-kissing soon enough. Might as well, right?
Hermione had not come across a student-teacher arranged marriage in Lavender's collection, probably because there was no sex happening in those stories, if Hermione was the average case.
Stay focused, she told herself. She was going to march into their room, well away from the bed, and kiss him and be done with it.
Tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow.
Definitely Tomorrow aka Saturday, started as any other: Hermione woke up and Severus was already gone from the bed.
She'd never admit it to anyone, except Crookshanks on bad days, but it made her incredibly self-conscious, the lack of affection or even leering from Severus. They were bloody married and bloody stuck with each other for most of the week. Was she not worth a second look?
Not that she wanted to have a physical relationship with him. She blushed with a scowl.
Today, she took this absence of kissing as a personal affront. She was going to bloody kiss him and save his arse from Voldemort whether he found her repulsive or not.
Just as she had dressed for the day and returned to their shared space, he ran out to meet said Dark Lord for a meeting.
Hermione began to fret as the clock on the mantle ticked closer to midnight. She didn't know exactly when their grace period was up. Would the owls go out at twelve-oh-one? Wait until the next business day to be processed?
If Hermione knew anything, it was that she could never know how or when the Ministry would step in to ruin her life.
She paced around the sitting room, from the back to Severus's office door to the mantle. Crookshanks tangled with her feet once and then steered clear for the rest of the night.
Hermione stoked the fire in the grate. The new blaze exacerbated her sweaty palms. It was 11:49.
She had really buggered this up. She should not have put it off.
Hermione felt sick. Voldemort was going to keep him until morning. And then, just as the meeting ended, the owls would come in, declaring Severus and Hermione Snape's marriage invalid. And then Severus would die. Slowly.
Hermione pressed her forehead against the stone near their bedroom door. 11:52.
Perhaps if she were more conventionally attractive this would not have happened.
She would be a widow. And back on the market for all the blood-thirsty Death Eaters to snag.
Hermione closed her eyes. She had no one to blame but herself. All of them finding out Severus was both a liar and a traitor would be on her head.
"Good show," she muttered.
If only he could leave before their marriage was revealed, he had a chance. In the castle he'd be safe—the only threats would be his students and the Carrow siblings, both of which Severus could handle.
God, what was she going to tell him? If she ever saw him again? 11:57.
She cycled through the many excuses and apologies until she heard the sound of Severus's office door closing.
Hermione bolted across the room.
Severus entered from his office, Death Eater cloak innocuously slung over his arm, his mask stowed out of sight.
Hermione grabbed him by his collar and forced her lips on to his. 11:58.
It was weird and tense and still.
His lips were cold from his walk to the castle from the back gate. He was stooped awkwardly, since she had to pull him down, and, you know, had leapt at him.
Hermione didn't breathe and kept her eyes clamped shut.
She did relax enough to open her lips to match his, since he hadn't hexed her across the room yet. And when she tilted her head so their noses weren't jammed together he kind of slightly mimicked her a little bit.
Hermione jerked away, the need to breathe too strong.
Severus looked one part offended, one part angry, and two parts flustered. Hermione had yet to let go of his coat. The clock chimed midnight.
"Have you lost your mind?" he asked, jerking from her grip.
Hermione quickly pulled her hands back to her sides. "If you had read the fine print, you'd've known we weren't actually married this whole time."
Severus stepped back, afraid Hermione might molest him again. "I think our ailing state at the beginning would beg to differ." He had the faintest spots of red on his cheeks.
He hadn't fled to the washroom to wash out his mouth. Hermione felt a smidge better about herself.
"The full effects appear in anticipation of the marriage becoming legally binding." She was mortified at the blush creeping onto her own face.
Severus tossed his tattered cloak onto the chest of drawers beside him. "You should've left it alone."
"Are you mad?" she sputtered.
"To clear your name," he scoffed.
"If I had left it alone," she repeated, "hundreds of owls would've flown out alerting all my petitioners, and yours, that our marriage was invalid. I'm sorry saving our lives is such a horrid affair," she concluded as she flung up her hands and walked to the bedroom.
She stomped back out as soon as she entered. "And you know what," she said, "I wouldn't've married you if I thought I'd need to scrub your name off like a bad stain. So stop trying to plan for a future where you're dead because it's really bringing me down."
The glare on his face was sharp and angular. It didn't look like he had a snide comeback, but if he had, Hermione would've left anyway.
It was midnight so she didn't really have anywhere to go except her own bedroom or their shared one. After that much excitement she figured a little alone time would do them good. But then she wondered if she would ever find the courage to go back to sharing a room.
She grabbed her satchel from her desk and returned to the giant, black satin bed.
She was half of this relationship and shared half of the repercussions and half of the burdens.
They were well and truly married now and he would just have to deal with it.